Analysis: Speaker

Our speaker definitely sounds a bit otherworldly with his metaphysical vibe and unusual imagery. We can't really say much about the speaker as a person because his voice sounds deliberately impersonal with his omniscient point of view. So the details as to who he is or what he's all about don't really matter. What does matter is that he sounds like a fairy godfather of modern poetry, and we say that with the utmost respect, of course.

To be clear, we're not saying he sounds like he's straight out of a fairy tale. Far from it. But he does sound, as we mentioned, not of this world. After all, he takes us from one series of images to another in a rather fluid way that doesn't sound as if it's tied at all to our pesky physical world. His voice lifts us out of those "entangled trees" and gets us closer to that moon climbing in the sky, just like the good poetry he speaks of. So we get why he's not supposed to sound all emotional and human. He's climbing with the moon, for crying out loud!

All the "motionless in time" talk only adds to his otherworldly metaphysical voice. We're not supposed to sense what time it really is or where the speaker is. Since he emphasizes the timelessness of good poetry, we understand that the speaker himself shouldn't be limited to a time or place. Instead, he kind of floats above us while managing to (hopefully) lift us up with him into the "art of poetry."